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Thursday, January 30, 2014

Pablo Sandoval is playing in his last season under team control with the Giants and the question is turning from his waistline to whether or not the Giants should extend him. I took a look at the question over at Bay Area Sports Guy:

The idea of extending Sandoval is an interesting question. There is no doubt that he is a very talented player; his 2009 and 2011 seasons were outstanding, his 2012 and 2013 were injury plagued but above average and no one will forget his performance in the Giants’ World Series victory over the Tigers.

On the downside there is the question of his size, which has been an issue since he broke out in 2009 and has gone up and down over his career.

What makes the idea of a long term deal a bit nerve-racking is that he reported to the team much larger than the team would have liked in 2013, and he didn’t seem all that apologetic about that in an interview with Jeff Passan. Without the carrot (no pun intended) of playing for a mega-deal, will Sandoval have the discipline to stay in good enough shape to remain an above average player?

The one bright sign on the weight front, is that this offseason he has done his workouts on his own, without the team guiding his every move. The results are evident in the photo seen here. Perhaps Sandoval will be able to maintain this new routine into the future and end, once and for all, all of the #FatChat stuff.

So now comes the big question, how big of a contract is Sandoval looking at?